A LETTER FROM PARIS.
It is a sunny summer afternoon. The New York pavements are blistering in
the heat, and even Broadway looks half deserted. Up-town, brown stone
mansions are hermetically sealed for the season, the "salt of the earth"
are drinking the waters at Saratoga, gazing at the trembling rapids of
Niagara, or disporting themselves on the beach at Long Branch. The
workers of the earth still burrow in their city holes, through heat, and
dust, and din, and glare, and among them Richard Gilbert.
He sits alone this stifling August afternoon, in his down-town office.
The green shades that do their best to keep out the white blinding glare
and fail, are closed. The windows stand wide, but no grateful breeze
steals in. He sits at his desk in a loose linen coat, multitudinous
documents labelled, scattered, and tied up before him. But it is a
document that does not look legal, that is absorbing his attention. It
is a letter, and the envelope, lying beside him on the floor, bears the
French postmark. He sits and re-reads with a very grave and thoughtful
face. "It is queer," he is thinking, "uncommonly queer. She must be an
adventuress, and a clever one. Of course she has wheedled him into
making a new will, and the lion's share will go to herself. Hum! I
wonder what Thorndyke will say. Come in."
He pushes the paper away, and answers a discreet tap at the door.
"Lady and gentleman to see you, sir," announces a clerk and the lady and
gentleman enter.
"Hope we don't disturb you, squire," says the gentleman, and Mr. Gilbert
rises suddenly to his feet. "Me and Hetty, we thought as how it would
keinder look bad to go back without droppin' in. Hot day, squire--now
ain't it?"
"My dear Miss Kent--my dear Uncle Reuben, this is an unlooked-for
pleasure. You in the city, and in the blazing month of August. What
tempted you?"
"Well, now, blamed if I know. Only Hetty here, she's bin sorter ailin'
lately, and old Dr. Perkins, he said a change would do her a heap of
good, and Hetty, she'd never seen New York, and so--that's about it.
Squire! we've had a letter."
He says it abruptly, staring very hard straight before him. Aunt Hetty
fidgets in her chair, and Richard Gilbert's pale, worn face grows
perhaps a shade paler.
"A letter," he repeats; "from _her_?"
"From her. Two letters, if it comes to that. One from this here town
last Christmas--t'other from foreign parts a week ago. I want to show
'em to you. Here's number one."
He takes a letter in an envelope from his pocket, and hands it to the
lawyer. It seems almost a lifetime ago, but the thrill that goes through
Richard Gilbert at sight of that writing still!
"Last Christmas," he says glancing at the postmark, a shade of reproach
in his tone. "And you never told me!"
"I never told you, squire. It ain't a pleasant sort of thing to talk
about, least of all to you. She doesn't deserve a thought from you, Mr.
Gilbert--"
The lawyer stopped him with a gesture.
"I have forgiven her long ago," he answers; "she did not care for me.
Better she should fly from me before marriage than after. Thank Heaven
she is alive to write at all."
He opens the note. It is very short.
"Dear Aunt Hetty--Dear Uncle Reuben--Dear Uncle Joe--if you will let me,
unworthy as I am, still call you by the dear old names. This is the
third time I have written since I left home, but I have reason to think
you never received the first two letters. I wrote then, as I write now,
to beg you on my knees for forgiveness. Oh, to see your dear faces once
more--to look again on the peaceful old home. But it cannot be. What
shall I say of myself? I am well--I am busy--I am as happy as I deserve,
or can ever expect to be. I am safely sheltered in a good man's house. I
have been to blame, but oh, not so much as you think. Some day I will
come to you and tell you all. Yours,
"NORINE.
"P. S.--_He_ is well. I have seen him since I came to New York twice,
though he has not seen me. May the good God bless him and forgive me.
"N. K. B."
Richard Gilbert read that postscript and turned away his head. He had
been near her, then, twice, and had never known it. And she cared for
him enough to pray for him still.
"Here's the other," said Reuben Kent; "that came a week ago."
He laid a large, foreign-looking letter on the desk, with many stamps,
and an Italian postmark.
"From Florence," the lawyer said; "how can she have got there?"
It was as short as the first.
"She was well. Foreign travel had done wonders for her health and
spirits. She was with kind friends. Impossible to say when she would
return, but always, whether at home or abroad, she was their loving
niece, NORINE BOURDON."
That was all. Very gravely the lawyer handed them back.
"Well, squire," Mr. Kent said, "what do you think?"
"That I am unutterably glad, and thankful to know she is alive and well,
and with friends who are good to her. It might have been worse--it might
have been worse."
"You believe these letters, then?"
"Undoubtedly I believe them. She is travelling as companion, no doubt,
to some elderly lady. Such situations crop up occasionally. I see she
gives you no address to which to write."
"I don't know that I should care to write if she did. _You_ may forgive
her, squire, but by the Lord Harry! _I_ aint got that far yet. If she
didn't run away with young Thorndyke, what did she run away at all for?"
"Because she cared so little for me, that facing the world alone was
easier than becoming my wife. We won't talk of it, Mr. Kent. How long do
you remain in town?"
Uncle Reuben rose.
"We go to-day, thank fortin'. How you, all of you, manage to live in
such a Babel beats me! Can't you strike work, Mr. Gilbert, and run down
to see us this blazin' summer weather?"
Mr. Gilbert shook his head with a smile.
"I am afraid not. I am very busy; I find hard work does me good. Well,
good-by, old friend. I am sincerely glad to have read those
letters--sincerely glad she is safe and well."
Then they were gone, and Richard Gilbert sat down alone in the hot,
dusty office. But the dusty office faded away, and in its place the rich
greenness of meadows came, the sweet, new-mown hay scented the air,
green trees and bright flowers surrounded him instead of dry-as-dust
legal tomes. And fairer, brighter, sweeter than all, came floating back
the exquisite face of Norine, the dark eyes gleaming, the white teeth
sparkling, the loose hair blowing, the soft mouth laughing. And once she
had promised to be his wife!
"Mr. Thorndyke, sir?"
The voice of his clerk aroused him. The fairy vision faded and fled, and
Richard Gilbert, in his grimy office, looked grimly up into the face of
Laurence Thorndyke.
"How do, Gilbert?" says Mr. Thorndyke, nodding easily; "hope I don't
intrude. Was loafing down town, and thought I would just drop in and see
if there was any news yet from the old man."
Mr. Thorndyke has lost none of the easy insouciance that sits
upon him so naturally and becomingly. He is in faultless
Broadway-afternoon-promenade costume, but he is not quite as
good-looking as he used to be. His handsome face looks worn and tired,
dissipated, and a trifle reckless, and the old flavor of wine and cigars
hangs about him still. He draws a chair towards him, and sits astride
upon it his arms folded over the back.
"The old man?" Mr. Gilbert repeats, still more grimly. "You refer to Mr.
Darcy, I presume?"
"Who else. To Darcy, of course--and be hanged to him. Any news yet?"
"There is news, Mr. Thorndyke. Will you be kind enough, in talking of my
old and valued friend,--and yours once,--to speak a little more
respectfully?"
"A little more fiddle-dee-dee!" retorts Mr. Thorndyke. "Confound the old
bloke, I say again! What business has he cutting up the way he _has_ cut
up ever since my marriage? I did everything I could to please him--I
leave it to yourself, Gilbert, I did everything I could to please him.
He wanted me to marry Helen. Well, haven't I married Helen? He wanted us
to go with him to Europe in May. Didn't we come back from the South in
April, to go with him in May as per agreement? And what do we find? Why,
that the venerable muddle-head has started off on his own hook, with old
Liston and some girl that he's taken in--adopted, or that bosh--a niece
of Liston's. Started off without a word--without one blessed word of
excuse or explanation to Helen or me. That's four months ago, and not a
letter since. Then you talk of respect! By Jove, sir, I consider
myself--Helen considers herself, shamefully treated. And here we are
broiling alive in New York this beastly hot weather, instead of doing
the White Mountains, or Newport, or somewhere else, where a man can get
a breath of air, waiting for a letter that never comes. You've heard
from him, you say--now what has the old duffer to say for himself?"
"He has nothing to say for himself. I have not heard from him. I said I
had heard _of_ him. How is Mrs. Thorndyke?"
"Well enough in health--devilish cross in temper. The old story--I'm a
wretch, drink too much, gamble too much, spend too much, keep too late
hours. Tell you what, Gilbert, matrimony's a fraud. Whilst I thought
Nellie was the old man's pet and I was his heir, it was all well enough;
blessed if I know what to think now. Are you going to tell me what you
have heard _of_ him?"
In silence, and with a face of contemptuous disgust, Mr. Gilbert takes
up the French letter, points to a column, and watches him. This is what
Mr. Thorndyke, with a face of horror, reads:
"I presume you know that your old friend and client, Hugh Darcy, died
here two days ago. The bulk of his fortune, I hear, is left to the
beautiful young widow, Mrs. Liston, whom he had legally adopted. She
takes his name, and with her own rare loveliness, and Darcy's half
million, Mrs. Liston-Darcy is destined to make no ordinary sensation
when she returns to New York."